I carried standard issue 1911's for a number of years, my favorite being a High Standard made model that I carried for about 2 1/2 years before they made me turn it in for a Beretta. I have never shot a 1911 that I couldn't qualify expert with on a combat qualification range, including some that the carrier assured me was terribly inaccurate.  You have to remember what they were designed to do and why they were designed that way. While many of the newer autos shoot better out of the box with a wider range of ammo, there aren't many that you can crawl around in the mud with, beat the mud out of the barrel and still expect it to fire. A standard issue 1911 will do that pretty well.

Failures, smokestaking and slam fires. I have never seen a failure to feed with hardball ammo in all the times we qualified with the 1911's, and I personally never had one smoke stake on me. I really can't ever remember that being a problem on the ranges either. I never carried one with a round in the chamber and hammer down, so while I understand that it can happen, I've never seen it nor have I personally spoke to anyone that has seen one do it.

I never had any trouble with the recoil. Admittedly, I come from a background shooting big bore revolvers, but I always felt the recoil was controllable and never had any trouble doing a double tap with one. I guess if you grew up round cap guns like the 9mm, it would be a shock:^).

If I ever had to go into combat, I think I would still take the reliability of the 1911 over some of the newer pistols.

Larry